Ant Miner A3 review after a week. (Many challenges)
Hello Steem community
Sorry There are no pictures as I am blind and do not find the need
This is my first post on this platform; so I hope you all can leave feedback.
When Bitmain released the Antminer a3 - batch 3 for $980USD I saw the promise
that SIA coins could have one day from doing research online.
I used WHATTOMINE to calculate what I would make, and the calculations didn't look too bad. I will not get into exact numbers since price changes all the time. My focus on this post is to talk about how the last week has been and how I have over come problems along the way.
In order the steps are below with notes.
Https://bitmain.com/ Is the first step
Check to make sure the ant miner you want to order is in stock.
I selected the ant miner A3 and selected bank wire as option to pay.
Payment process
Using provided information I was able to send the wire and after having to call Bitmain in China directly for about 30m was able to get them to process order manually since it had expired.
I did have to create a ticket but got an answer in less than a day.
Shipping.
I picked UPS and it came within 5 days of shipping date.
There were duties on the PSU and Miner equaling about $200 cad total.
You can pay at the door with a credit card.
Power
Another important item is the Power Supply fully knowing I would need 220v to get 1600w from the Bitmain Power supply I still ended up ordering it direct from the OEM.
I feel since they made it and they must use it in their own mining centers it was the best choice for now. I am working on one of 2 options, either to order another power supply costing around $300 cad after all is said and done, or installing 220v power at home.
How it runs
For now I am only using 2 boards 1 and 3 to mine since I do not want to burn out my psu or Miner.
I connected 6 PCIE plugs to the boards and one to the controller other 3 are taped up hanging disconnected for now.
At default settings I am able to mine using those 2 boards at around 500-600GHZ the temps on each PCB is around 60 and CHIP is around 75-80.
Noise
Here is the next big problem, it is loud; very loud.
Even with only 2 boards the fan runs at around 4700rpm - 5200rpm.
I can run it in the day no problem since it is in a room of its own, with 2 windows, and a fan. but at night there is no way I can sleep if I do not unplug it.
After a bit of fiddling around in the ant miner settings I lowered my clock speed down to 300m, and after a reboot, the fans go down to 3200rpm.
From about 300GHZ per board to 140GHZ per board is the loss to speed.
It was a choice to turn it off or run at half speed for 8 hours at night. I feel as if I made the best choice in this case.
Total cost: (USD)
$980 Ant Miner A3 - $180 shipping.
APW3 PLUS PLUS cost $105 - $100 Shipping.
$150 duties for both items combined
Total= 1515 USD.
At this rate I will earn just over 500SC per day.
Once I have 220v power and a way to silence the miner about 750sc per day.
The plan is to now go and buy supplies to build a sound silencer for the miner.
I will post with an updated post letting you guys know the process and rough costs for the project.